


The Way You Used To Do

by AdmiralOptimus



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Basically uh. Eve and Villanelle both get new identities, Bounty Hunter Villanelle, Enemies to Lovers, Eve Polastri and Villanelle | Oksana Astankova in Alaska, F/F, I'm Bad At Tagging, P.I. Eve, and summaries, i guess?, its chaotic its gay and it tried writing it before but it sucked so this is a redo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25779124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdmiralOptimus/pseuds/AdmiralOptimus
Summary: After the events of Season 3, Eve managed to convince Villanelle to work with MI6 to expose the 12 in return for a new identity and a fresh start anywhere in the world.Villanelle took the deal. Eve followed soon after.Eve ended up in Anchorage, Alaska, working as a P.I. under the name Eve Larson. Villanelle became Vera Marks, a Bounty Hunter who specializes in hunting down particularly shitty men. However, one case eventually drags both of them together again, rules are broken, perceptions shattered, and most importantly: chocolate bread is eaten.Disclaimer: I made up the town where most of this story takes place because I don't know any particular city in Alaska well enough to be valid while writing this.This story follows the disappearance of a young woman, who SPOILER ALERT, was kidnapped, which could very well be a trigger for many readers. I'll tag as I continue writing.I did try and write this concept about two years ago under a fic titled Abide With Me. I thought the writing was shit, and abandoned it, but the concept still stayed with me, so I'm giving it another shot. Each chapter will have any TWs listed at the very beginning.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1: Lemons and Larynxes

**Author's Note:**

> TWs for this chapter:   
> Mild Violence  
> Use of the word r@pist
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy!

Eve rapped her fingers on her desk, her short nails tapping the file of photographs on her desk. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Mr. Davenport, her client, was already 15 minutes late. He was always late. It was getting irritating. 

She flipped open the portfolio lazily. The pictures inside detailed a lust filled affair being undertaken by Davenport’s wife. 

None of the pictures were particularly smutty, just the usual slightly dull incriminating shots- a hug, a kiss, two forms entering an apartment. The basics. 

Anchorage wasn't exactly a city alive with the desperate need for a good P.I, and really, Eve just needed to pay the bills. 

This was reinvention after all, a new job, a new last name, and a new resume free of any secret government assassin-seeking operations. 

She stretched out her arms lazily as she thought about what she’d want to eat after this meeting. The Indian place up the street had pav bhaji to die for, but she was itching for something else. Steak and fries from the diner up the way? Leftover kimbap? 

It was just when she was settling on the notion of getting lemony fried halibut chips when her office phone rang loudly. It was probably just Davenport calling to cancel or make up some bullshit excuse, but Eve picked up with the usual opening line anyways.

“You’ve reached Larson investigations, how can we help you today?” A woman’s voice was on the other end, rushed and strained. 

“Hi, uh, my name’s Carol, I’m down in Prince Rupert? Canada? I’m calling about a missing persons case.” The woman’s voice was Canadian for sure, definitely white. Eve imagined her as a middle aged brunette, a mom, maybe. 

“Have you gone to the police?” Eve’s voice was still slightly listless as she rattled off the required lines. She wasn't supposed to investigate criminal cases unless the police were already investigating. 

“Yes, just over a week ago. It’s my daughter, she’s a hiker? She was on a trip up north, she was trying to hike up to Reynold’s point in May.” 

“Mhmm.”

“Well, she was supposed to call me every other day, and she did. We’re very close and she was very very diligent about it, she knows how I worry. I know she reached that town, Brookhaven, and then she stopped calling.” 

Eve’s mind started turning. “Is there any way she could’ve lost her phone?”

“Even if she did she’d have borrowed one from another hiker or gotten to a payphone, just to let me know. Like I said, she knows how much I worry.”

Eve paused for a minute. Calls like this were pretty frequent, parents or relatives of missing hikers or vagabonds calling her up asking her to track down their missing loved one. 

Usually, there were two easy solutions for missing young adults in Alaska: Option A: They turned up in a bar in Juneau, or B: they’d be found within a week stranded on some island off the coast because they decided to go full McCandless.They usually made pretty easy solves, especially once trust funds got involved. 

“Does- sorry, what’s her name again? Your daughter?”

“June Ballard.”

“Right, does June have a credit card? Or a car in the state?” 

The call went on, as it usually does. As Eve hung up, she ran through the facts in her head. Lost hikers were not anything new. 

She flipped open her computer. Just typing in “Missing Hikers Alaska” into google prompted thousands of results. Articles about missing hitchhikers, couples, vacationers, or photographers were beyond abundant. 

Conspiracy theories about Alaska’s “Bermuda Triangle” were well known to any P.I in the region, but the numbers were still shocking. The region was allegedly the last known location to thousands. 

She pulled up another site to briefly track the phone registered to the number that Carol had given her. Nothing came up, meaning the phone must be completely dead. 

Soon facts about June filled Eve’s searches and notes. She was 23, just graduated from Mount Holyoke. In high school, she’d fundraised for an all-female climb of Mount Kilimanjaro, even wrote her college essay about it. She has two ex-girlfriends, one ex-boyfriend, none of whom she was with or lived near where she went missing from. 

She bit her lip anxiously as she scrolled through June’s instagram. She had a weird feeling about this case.

She knew that feeling. See, there was a third common result of missing persons cases in Alaska, one that Eve did not yet want to confront: that June was dead in the mountains, would be covered by snow by winter, and would never be seen again.

She called Carol again, barely noticing that Mr. Davenport was officially two-and-a-half hours late and therefore a lost cause.

She’d take the case.

_____________

Exactly 3,198 miles away, Villanelle, ~sorry~, Vera, had her foot on a rapist’s throat. 

This was particularly routine, but she usually liked to spice it up by fracturing the larynx. Today was a good day. She was thriving. Her hair looked good, she fit perfectly into the artistically torn overpriced black jeans that she’d bought specifically for this job, and she’d managed to run down her target, who she’d been told would be nearly impossible to hunt down in under 6 weeks, in under four days. 

Some of her ashy blond hair fell into her face as she flipped the man over to handcuff him. 

The him in question was a man named Nathaniel Smith, and he was an ex-cop who’d fled bail two months ago after he was officially charged with the rape of five women. 

Villanelle hated him with every fiber of her being. It was fun, hating one person this much, focusing rage on one target like a child directing a magnifying glass at an ant. It was easy, obsessing over one individual, and then relishing the feeling of having caught them, taken them down, walking away superior.

Dragging him back to court and collecting her bounty would make her week. Maybe even her month if he flails about a bit.

“Please-” the man wheezes out, “I have money.”

She wrinkled her nose. Apparently she hadn’t fractured the larynx after all, which was deeply unfortunate. 

She kept her face as stone cold as possible as she finished latching his hands together. Calmly, she reached into her back pocket, slipped out her phone. 

“Cheese!” She tried to sound as cheery as possible as she lurched his head up and slapped a selfie.

Some context:

Villane- sorry, Vera was not a cop. The very concept made her want to hurl all over her newly purchased black crocodile skin boots. 

No. She was a bounty hunter. Freelance. 

It was a pretty easy gig. Some mild internet stalking, small quantities of torture, and some basic tracking would lead to speedy takedowns and quick cash. 

Eve had set it up. After the disaster that was trying to run away with Konstantin, Eve convinced her to work for MI6 for a few months, finding ways to lure out members of the twelve. Honestly, it was dull, playing by the rules.

But she got a shiny new identity in the process- Vera Marks, a British-American citizen of Washington D.C. The old her, Oksana, had tragically perished in the most ordinary way possible for a woman like her- prison riot. 

She was at peace with it. She was out. That part was easy. 

Plus, for the first time in her life, she had the luxury of setting her own rules. She could have a code and mean it. 

And the code went like this:

Rule #1: Only hunt men who are assholes

This rule was pretty self explanatory. Since coming to America, Villanelle had learned a few things about criminal justice, namely, that it was nonexistent in this stupid bloated nation.

There were always bounties out there for criminals fleeing responsibility. Villanelle only chased those that had a good price and truly seemed to deserve it. 

Rule #2: No hunting down tax evaders 

God, they love catching tax evaders in this country. Woop-dee-do. 

In Villanelle’s experience, they were all middle aged white men in sweaty misfitted suits who thought they could manipulate capitalism. Either that, or people being fucked by capitalism. Either way, far too dull, and a pass for her. 

Rule #3: No hunting women

She broke rule #3 once, which led to the creation of rule #4. It turns out women fleeing the law tend to have a very particular vibe that Villanelle was very into. 

However, she got distracted, got messy and emotional, and that was worse than being bored.

Rule #4: No fucking bounties 

There's gotta be some boundaries. Plus, she could lose her license. She could bribe another official for one within a week but that’d be irritating.

And finally, 

Rule # 5: No going into Alaska

This rule was partially due to the terms of Villanelle’s agreement with MI6, and partially because it would risk violating rules 3, and 4. 

Anyways. Nathaniel Smith was the epitome of the average man who Villanelle ended up hunting due to these rules. White, rich, probably racist, and likely very guilty of some heinous shit. It worked out. 

Villanelle grinned as she uploaded the selfie to her instagram. Her account, @Vera_Hunts, was pretty popular. Though she wasn't supposed to have a social media presence at all, she found the concept of MI6 trying to shut her down far more entertaining. 

“Hashtag guilty as charged” She read out gleefully, showing the post to Nathaniel just before she clicked post. 

“Does the sepia filter make my hair look okay?” she asked mockingly. She loved this part. Now, he knew he was utterly screwed. He was a fugitive from justice, caught by a bounty hunter, with his face soon to be plastered all over the internet. 

Now was usually the part where her bounties would say very very foul things about her. Nathaniel Smith did not disappoint. Still, she half-dragged him to her dark green 1964 Sunbeam Alpine, and he stopped talking somewhere around the 193 mile mark.

It was a long way back to Houston. 

A long way back to start researching her next bounty.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter today guys I'm sorry! Hopefully I can update with a much better chapter three within the next few days.
> 
> Warnings:
> 
> Uh? Minor swearing?

Two days later, Eve’s beaten blue pick up rumbled to a stop in front of a worn-down cafe. A small sign in the front window read “Hikers Welcome!” with the symbol of the Iditarod, the trail that ran through the mountains just north of the cafe. 

It was the same trail June had been determined to finish. The trail itself was infamous, used by dog sledders (muskers) in the winters and hiked by hundreds in the summer. 

Here, the trail had only stretched only 250 miles of the total 950, alluring hikers and muskers to the wonders of the Alaskan coast. Brookhaven wasn't a stop for the race, but, according to local Iditarod blogs, it drew burnt-out hikers like flies. 

Brookhaven was a small town with just over 1,000 residents. It felt like the kind of place that only existed in a Netflix original, it was cozy, perpetually coated in a layer of mist, and had at least two cutesy diners. It was mostly a port town, with fishing along the coast and small businesses dotting the main street. 

Driving here had been a royal pain in the ass. Road closures and the rare shutdown of a much-needed gas station had caused Eve enough anxiety. Swerving around a giant moose carcass that had been left lying in the road did not improve her mood much. 

But now that she was here, the burning feeling to get out of the car as soon as possible had subsided, replaced by something numb and cold. 

Eve felt afraid, she realized. She hated working missing persons cases for exactly this reason- she despised the idea that the person she was looking for, the person who’s loved ones she spoke to, the person whose absence she was financially benefited from, was dead long before Eve even started to search, and everything she did was useless. 

She physically shook her head to pull her out of this funk. June, she decided, was fine, alive, and by all rationale had likely stopped at this exact diner. After weeks of having lukewarm beans and cold grape nuts as her only form of sustenance, the very concept of a burger would’ve been enough to make the hiker’s mouth water.

Eve hopped out of her truck, her feet sinking slightly into the muddy gravel of the parking lot. Today, she decided, she was getting answers, answers that would lead to a very much alive June Ballard.

She pushed her muddy boots into the doormat and slid into the first booth she saw, barely making eye contact with the busy server who was pouring coffee at the counter.  
__________

God, turning in her latest bounty had been ridiculously irritating. She’d gotten her car, her gorgeous vintage car, altered to have a screen up in the back, just like you see in cop cars, and yet he managed to moan the entire way. 

He was so whiny, constantly talking about money and whimpering about how his father was some senator or something. Americans, and their government, were so inconsequential.

She’d managed to ignore him for the first six hours, when she pushed through North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas (pronounced Ark-Han-Za, not Ar-Kan-Sas, which made no sense. Again, stupid Americans) when the whining was reall getting on her nerves. She pulled over by a Sonic, knocked him out, and kept going. He stayed pretty quiet till they got to Houston. 

Now, she was itching for a new case. 

She sat in a cheap cafe, sipping a lukewarm latte, as she scrolled through pages of updated bounties. Nothing was calling her name.

She tipped her chair dangerously far back as she considered what else she could do. She could upgrade her wardrobe, buy an impressive looking knife, go off the grid for a few days just to give M16 a scare…. The options were endless. She sat back up swiftly, frustrated, because really, she didn't want to do any of those things. What she wanted, right now, was a serious distraction, and that required a fucking case.

Her fingers drummed the keyboard, not hitting any letters, just emitting a quiet anxious rattle. 

She pulled up another page and scrolled through an endless void of endless person cases. Sometimes, these cases were fun to work too, some even had good money at the end. They’d be easy too, if you picked the right cases it was like taking candy from a baby.

Her gaze stopped at a poster depicting a smiling blonde girl, a medal slung across her neck. June, the description read, last seen in Brookhaven.

Alaska.

Villanelle’s fingers tensed. She pulled her hands into fists.

She closed her eyes.

Breathed.

Off-Limits, she thought, and kept scrolling.   
The faces blurred together for a while as Villanelle’s already mediocre latte chilled. 

She’d pick a new case tomorrow. Today, the world was beige.

Tomorrow, she’d try again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve finds an ex, Villanelle pretends she isn't thinking about hers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: I can't? Think of any? Sound off in the comments if I missed anything (or if you just want to comment for the hell of it)

Today was exciting.Today, Eve had found out June Ballard’s ex boyfriend, Mason, had planned a three week long vacation to Alaska in April, and was still here. Just sixty-five miles out from Brookhaven, working on a trout fishing guide boat owned by his uncle.

Now that was a lead. 

Eve felt like she was vibrating with excitement on the drive over. Or maybe it was her engine finally going to shit, or a combo of both. Either way, Mason was a variable, a wrench in the wheels of this story, or maybe a red herring in disguise.

Whatever his role, Eve felt like she was in a detective novel, a real one this time. Behind her were the years of espionage and corporate greed, instead she was now deeply embedded in the pages of a Sherlock-Holmes style mystery, defined by mountains, lost love, intrigue, and glacial beauty. 

It was a truly beautiful road, Eve mused as she turned the long corners that ducked along the hazy coastline. The shoreline was dotted with mist and massive rocks that stuck out of the pebble-formed shore. 

Eve’s radio hummed with her driving playlist. She’d gotten really into music since she’d moved here- the right song could accent any moment if she let it. Matthew Dear’s Modafinil Blues seemed to merge with the fog.

“And it's coming undone….” The notes blended together as Eve turned another corner, the shadows of trees looming large, battling the rays of sunlight that pushed through the fog.

“So I run and I run…”

Eve’s eyes were sharp, looking for both a tell-tale mailbox with Mason’s last name, Quince, plastered on it, and checking for the hazy shapes of wildlife ahead on the road. Eve saw a moose get hit once. Neither party survived.

“And there's nowhere left worth….”

And there it was, like a ghost, a black mailbox, little red tab up, marked “QUINCE”. Eve allowed herself a small smile as she turned into the gravel driveway. 

She turned down the music until each lyric could be barely heard, the swelling sounds of the notes melded together with the quiet noise of gravel running under Eve’s tires.

She pulled the truck to a stop in front of a small green roofed cabin. Laundry was strung up running from a post on the porch to a nearby evergreen. The lights inside were on, warm. It looked like a lived in, worn space.

She stepped out of a car as a gangly blonde man stuck his head out of the front door. He looked confused, Eve thought, evaluating as she shut her truck door. Everything about him implied he was surprised to have a stranger as a visitor, but nothing about him seemed afraid. His pupils aren't dilated, and he stepped out the door with a carefree attitude. 

“Mason?” She asked, taking a step towards him. “Are you Mason Quince?”

“Who’s asking?”

That answer threw her for a minor loop. He’d seemed so calm, approachable. Acting with any level of caution seemed unlike her initial reading.

“I’m Eve Po- Larson. I’m a private investigator. I have a few questions about your ex girlfriend?”

Mason threw his head back in what seemed like frustration. “Look, if this is Sara selling fake acid again-”

“No, no, I’m here about a different ex. June Ballard?”

“June! I just saw her last week- we grabbed coffee. What’s she up to? Is this another eco-protest arrest or something?”

“A what?”

“Eco-activism? She got arrested for refusing to leave a redwood that time in ‘18.”

He squinted. “You’d know that, though.”

Eve sighed. She should've seen that on her background check. Maybe a settlement erased the arrest from her publically accessible background check.

“No, uh, she’s gone missing. Her mom sent me to check around. I was hoping she was with you.”

Mason shook his head. “Nah. She came into town last? Thursday? We grabbed coffee at Vic’s. Haven't seen her since. She was really into finishing the trail, we didn't talk long.”

These were the moments when Eve wished she was still MI6. It’d be so easy to access surveillance footage, run a full background check, bring him in for interrogation.

Despite all that, something in Eve’s gut told her he was telling the truth.

“Why’d you break up?”

Mason shrugged. “Wanted different things.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she wanted her roommate.”

“Ah.”

There was silence for a second.

“Did she say anything? About where she was headed, anyone she’d seen, anything strange?” Eve tried to get the conversation rolling again.

Mason shook his head. “We mostly talked about missing Massachusetts and our shared love for Netflix. She wanted to get to Lemming by the end of the next week though.”

Eve ran the numbers in her head. That would mean she had planned to get to Lemming tomorrow. That was a lead, kind of. Eve could at least check if she made it.

“Alright. I might pop by later with a few questions.”

“Okay. Let me know when you find her, please. She’s responsible. She’s not one to disappear.”

Mason ran his fingers through his hair. “That was one annoying thing about dating her. She told her Mom everything, at all times. If Carol sent you, well, that's a sign somethings up.”

Eve nodded. Her excitement was gone. She’d really hoped she’d find June shacked up with Mason. It’d be a simple solve, one that meant everyone was safe and warm and okay.

As Eve walked back to her truck, Mason’s number in her pocket, she felt a rush of cold despite the 71 fahrenheit heat. 

Because she knew if June wasn't in Lemming, there was something much much darker at play.

________

Villanelle had decided to change things up a bit. Today, she was out hunting not someone who had skipped bail, but a wanted fugitive. 

The bail skipping got a bit bland. It was usually the same brand of white men who had committed white-collar crimes or disgusting acts of sexual assault that rarely had consequences that stuck.

They’d do the same thing- run away to some wealthy region, rent a furnished vacation house, and throw away their credit cards. 

Here's the mistake they always made- they withdrew cash before doing so. 

From there, Villanelle could follow a trail of money so wide that it could be seen from space. And god, following a trail that was so painfully obvious got dull. 

After dropping off her last bounty and searching wanted posts again and again and again she finally found someone of substance. Eli McNamera, an accused drug runner, human trafficker, and violent abuser of three separate ex girlfriends. He was wanted in 16 states, and two countries, and had even landed on the FBI’s most wanted list. Plus, as a very very fun bonus, he was wanted for 250,000 dollars. 

Now that, Villanelle decided, was a sexy case. One grade A asshole, with the added bonus of earning his weight in future unnecessary spending. 

Right now the money shouldn't be on her mind. She knew that, and she knew the money didn't really matter anyways. She had the money for whatever she might desire, snakeskin boots or a new rolex, whatever horesehit Americans considered to be status symbols. Despite all that, the money still felt like a siren call, a whisper of her old life of luxury and intrigue echoing. 

“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” she whispered under her breath, her voice now in a hoarse Russian accent. Konstantin used to say that to her, when the money seemed too good and she would pretend it was already in her back account.

She shifted her shoulders, as if she was trying to force Konstantin’s influence out of her body, shedding it like a snake sheds its skin.

She could wear cover identities like they were a jacket, pulling personas over herself with ease.  
Her voice was interchangeable, accents and lingo ingrained into her tongue. 

Even now, she played a part, Vera, the sexy and slightly-butch bounty hunter. 

But despite all that, despite her practice adopting and abandoning fixations and lives and identities, she couldn't quite get London out of her mind. 

Sometimes, late at night, she’d lie on the beds of cheap motels, the kinds of motels with free breakfasts and little bits of egg stuck between the prongs of it’s forks, the kind of place where the chlorine from the indoor pool seeped into every surface and carpets and floors were one and the same, it was in those kinds of places where she’d be enveloped by her pillow and she could almost pretend that she could smell a whiff of curly hair and perfume in the air. She’d dream of turtlenecks.

She bit her lip, hard. It bled a little, her mouth filling with the rusty taste of iron. She did that, sometimes, maybe more than sometimes, to bring her attention back to the now. 

Because, right now, she had to focus.

Right now, she had an asshole to hunt.


End file.
